Vince Burton Photography

Arctic fox

Arctic foxes come in three colour types, known as colour "morphs". In Iceland the rarer blue morph, or brown coloured Arctic fox is the most common colouration with around 60-70% of the countries population that colour, against less than 10% of the world's population. Blue morph Arctic foxes are a milk to dark chocolate brown all year, slightly darker in the summer.

White morph Arctic foxes are white in the winter and a sandy grey in the summer. The third morph colouration is extremely rare and is called the beige morph.

The difference in colourations allows Arctic foxes to adapt to different environments. The blue morph is adapted to coastal living where the foxes need to blend in against wet sands, stones and sea weeds, while the white morph is more suited further inland where they have to hunt in the snow.